Children’s Day plants military mindset in future generations

The verbal spat between Thaksin and Prawit over which is the cleaner, more transparent politician and respecter of the rule of law only further exposes both men’s true colours.

Most people perceive both as corrupt, the only difference between them being the extent of that corruption and the power behind them – civilian or military. If Prawit wanted to justify his claim to be a transparent and ethical politician, he should have resigned even before the National Anti-Corruption Commission ruled on his luxury-watch saga.

Prayut, despite being a self-proclaimed clean Army man, is also just like any other politician, serving his surrounding corrupt cronies just to stay in power. Each Children’s Day, the military rolls out weapons and hardware for children to admire, planting in young heads the mindset that the armed forces are the saviour of the nation. Of course, the hardware is mostly outdated and cost taxpayers much more than it was worth because of the commission paid to military leaders.

If the government really cared about the public, Children’s Day would include activities which instil educational betterment and a disciplinary mindset in our future generation. When Singapore first established itself as a nation, Lee Kuan Yew tried very hard to turn a population of mostly uneducated labourers into a knowledge-based city-state. When will Thailand reform to be a better nation, rather than following the outdated traditional norm and depending on a hypocrite military as the knight in shining armour that comes to our rescue?